by John Mason | Feb 23, 2014 | Word on Wednesday
In the movie Up in the Air, George Clooney’s character lives a life committed to getting his ten million air miles. He sees relationships as insignificant compared with the prestige in having the silver card engraved ‘Ryan Bingham #7’. Yet when it is handed to him mid-flight by the captain, along with a public announcement and champagne, he realizes how meaningless it is.
Preoccupation.
On one occasion a man listening to Jesus, interjected: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me” (12:13). Despite the life and death matters Jesus had just been speaking about (12:4-12), this man’s thoughts were focused on an injustice that was gnawing away inside him. And Jesus responded without missing a beat: “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” he asked (12:14). It was hardly a warm response. But Jesus was aware that this man was obsessed with this issue. He needed to awaken him to larger issues in life.
‘Do you really believe that I am an arbiter and judge over you?’ is the implication of Jesus’ question. ‘If you do, then who do you think has given me this authority?’ Apparently the man had not thought about this. Furthermore, in tacitly acknowledging Jesus to be a prophet from God who could adjudicate in his affairs, he was inviting God to judge his own affairs as well. But he hadn’t thought about this either, hence Jesus’ telling words: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (12:15).
Accruing foolishness.
To make his point he told a searching parable about a wealthy landowner who thought too much about himself (12:16-20). Using a string of first-person pronouns, Jesus painted a picture of the foolishness of accruing wealth. The rich man was consumed with ‘my crops, my grain, my barns, myself, my life, and my soul’. It was a picture of arrogant self-satisfaction.
The man had failed to understand that his life was ultimately not his own. ‘Tonight your life, your soul, will be demanded from you,’ Jesus concluded. Life is not ours to do with simply as we want. It is something for which we all have to give an account. This wealthy man thought only about himself. He didn’t give a passing thought to the second command about neighbor love (10:29ff), nor the first commandment about love for God.
“You fool!”
“You fool!” God said. What a chilling verdict. To be obsessed with things is the ultimate foolishness, for none of us can speak with certainty about tomorrow let alone many years hence. Materialism offers neither real security nor true and lasting satisfaction.
Priorities?
Jesus had turned the question of a self-centered, thoughtless man into a provocative moment in his life. In contrast to laying up treasure for ourselves, Jesus tells us we should settle for nothing less than becoming rich in our relationship with God. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Jesus went on to say. God’s people who trust Jesus at his Word generously invest in God’s agenda – local church and outreach ministries, education, care for the needy and the outcast. The question is, ‘What about you?’
Note: This week’s ‘Word’ is adapted from my commentary, John G. Mason, Reading Luke Today: An Unexpected God, Aquila: 2012, p.176ff
by John Mason | Feb 12, 2014 | Word on Wednesday
Leaders.
There seems to be something in the human heart that longs for a leader – a leader whose integrity is transparent and who is worthy of our trust. In fact, tough times make us realise how grateful we are when we have leaders who use their position and power to serve our welfare. Leaders like Winston Churchill not only win loyalty but respect. Down through the ages people have expressed their desire for leaders like this. Plato wrote about it with his notion of a philosopher king in The Republic. J.R.R. Tolkein’s, ‘King’ in the Lord of the Rings is another example of a trustworthy leader who fulfills people’s longings.
A unique leader.
As Luke’s narrative about Jesus of Nazareth unfolds we see that many came to see him as a leader who used his remarkable powers with integrity. He was a leader who could be trusted. But Jesus did not make it easy for potential followers.
Expectations.
When one man made what seemed a promising commitment, “I will follow you wherever you go” (9:57), Jesus’ response was terse:
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (9:58).
He wanted the man to consider carefully what ‘following’ would mean. Jesus was born in a manger and would die on a cross and, in between, had nowhere to lay his head. So he asks us: ‘Are you willing to join me on a journey through life that may be without material comfort and security? Are you prepared to go without for the sake of bringing others into the kingdom?’
Even family demands must not stand in the way of serving God’s kingdom. Luke tells us about two others who, like the fans of celebrities, were following Jesus.
The first man’s request seems reasonable: “Lord, let me first go and bury my father” (9:59). But, if the man’s father had died he would have returned home immediately. In fact, his parents had some years to live but he was using their ultimate demise as an excuse. ‘What is more important?’ Jesus was asking, ‘cultural expectations or the announcement of the kingdom of God?’ Yes, children are to honor parents and care for them, but God has first claim on us.
The second man’s request also seems reasonable: “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me say farewell to those at my home” (9:61). Jesus knew a lengthy Middle-Eastern family farewell would be used by the family to overturn this man’s resolve to follow a leader like him.
We might be impressed with Jesus and may even want to follow him ourselves, but we are not always willing to commit – yet. Augustine, the 5th century bishop of Hippo said, O Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet. Jesus is a demanding leader. He wants our total commitment. He calls us to be willing to leave the security of the world’s wealth; the security of a comfortable home; the security of family and friends. We have a choice to make.
A leader to be trusted.
Jus showed extraordinary trust and confidence in God’s Word. He invites us to do the same. Yes, to follow Jesus is to join him on a road through life that may be tough. But it is worth it. We will increasingly discover that he is an exciting, creative, risk-taking but trustworthy leader – a leader we long for. ‘What does it profit a man or a woman,’ Jesus asked, ‘to gain the whole world yet lose their own soul?’ It was to save us from losing our souls that Jesus came. If we spend our life for him, paradoxically we find it.
by John Mason | Feb 5, 2014 | Word on Wednesday
Life…
The death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman of a heroin overdose in New York’s West Village last Sunday is a tragedy. He had a long-standing partner with whom he had three children; he enjoyed career success with many accolades including an Oscar for his role in Capote. Yet, having had a respite from drug addiction for some twenty years he had turned once again to the heroin induced highs. Humanly speaking he had it all – success, fame, and family, yet he looked for more. Our deepest sympathy and prayers go out for his loved ones and friends.
His passing raises a question for us all: Is he yet another example of the twenty-first century restlessness and the cry, ‘If it feels good, do it’? As we all discover in time, simply following our passions does not ultimately satisfy.
The God factor.
When we turn to the pages of Luke’s Gospel we find that Jesus is telling us that the real cause of our dilemma is that we have tipped a relationship with God out of our lives, and that this needs remedying. While many thinking people come to realize that we are not here by chance, our inclination is to shut any notion of a creator God out of our lives.
The fact is, we are designed to share life with God but we have chosen to cut the relationship. As a result we are left lonely, insecure and without direction. We are at odds with ourselves, with one another and even with the universe. St Augustine the 5th century bishop of Hippo, understood this when he said:
‘You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you’.
But instead of turning to God, what do we do? We spend all of our time trying to plug the gap that God’s absence has left. Many New Yorkers try to plug it with sexual adventure. But it never works. For no human relationship, no matter how emotionally intense, can be a substitute for the relationship with God that we were made for.
Let’s be honest.
It is always painful to have to face up to the truth, but the reality is, we all have skeletons in our closet. We all have things in our lives that we can’t think about without embarrassment. We all have thoughts in our imaginations that would make us blush if they were headlined in the public arena.
Someone has said:
‘Such is our pride that most of us engage in a kind of inner psychological conspiracy to conceal that secret shame from everybody, even from ourselves.’
We can pretend we are good people; we can even believe it ourselves. But it isn’t true.
Jesus.
Jesus sees through our subterfuge. We can’t hide from him what we can hide from others, and even from ourselves. He sees everything in our lives and he insists that we do too. He wants us to face up to the fact that we are fallen failures, spiritual bankrupts, sinners, guilty before the holy God.
Jesus was an extraordinary man who had remarkable powers and authority over sickness, evil, nature and even death (8:22-56). But he also has God’s authority to forgive us. This was the center-piece of his life’s work. He said it himself when he summed up the purpose of his coming: The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost (Luke 19:10).
It is only when we personally do business with Jesus as the Lord, the only Savior, that we find forgiveness, a new start in life, and a hope for the future. No wonder he asked his first followers:
“Who do you think I am?” (Luke 9:20)
by John Mason | Sep 26, 2013 | Thursday Thoughts
Carefully planned terrorist bombings of the church in Peshawar, Pakistan and in the Mall in Nairobi, Kenya this last week are another reminder of human alienation. Despite extraordinary advances in science and technology, we are still incapable of making a just and lasting peace for all peoples of all nations. Peace at the best of times is an uncertain affair. It seems the only way we can ensure it, is through more laws, greater security and the loss of more personal freedoms.
Commenting on why he wrote Lord of the Flies, William Golding commented:
“I believed then, that man was sick–not exceptional man, but average man. I believed that the condition of man was to be a morally diseased creation and that the best job I could do at the time was to trace the connection between his diseased nature and the international mess he gets himself into.”
‘Alienation’ is a good word to describe our plight. In his Letter to the Colossians, Paul the Apostle speaks of alienation not just as the breakdown of human relationships but the breakdown of our relationship with God. Despite the strident voices to the contrary, there is still within the vast majority of people an innate sense that God not only is there, but also that we live in a moral universe. Right and wrong exist. Yes, Paul Bloom of Yale does argue that these notions are the outcome of blind evolution and that this is an evolutionary faux pas. But, given the unique history surrounding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Bloom’s thesis is a far greater step of faith than what Christianity asks.
If there is a God who is all-powerful and good, why the mess? God could have written off the universe as a failure and started again. But that would have been to admit defeat. The Bible tells us that God determined on a more costly strategy. Instead of abandoning this evil and ungrateful world, he came to its rescue himself. He needed to find a way to destroy the enmity without destroying the enemy. This was the only way to provide a just and lasting peace.
Colossians 1:21-23 tells us that God’s strategy was not political, military nor educational. Rather, he chose the path of sacrifice. From God’s standpoint, a just and lasting peace was only possible through Jesus’ death on the cross. We can think of it like this. Suppose a wife or husband or parent has profoundly hurt us. But one day we learn that they are in really serious trouble, and we have the resources to help them. We could tell them to go to hell. But what if there was still a love for them within us? We would need to find a way within ourselves to absorb all the pain, hurt and anger that boils up at the very thought of them, so that we can reach out and help them.
The good news is that through the death of Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man, God found a way to reconcile us to himself. When Jesus died, God in his love absorbed within himself the just pain and anger we have caused within him. When we bow our proud heads and truly ask Jesus Christ for his forgiveness, God can justly declare us to be at one, at peace, with him.
In her Christmas Day broadcast last year, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II said:
“This is the time of year when we remember that God sent his only son ‘to serve, not to be served’…
The carol, In The Bleak Midwinter, ends by asking a question of all of us who know the Christmas story, of how God gave himself to us in humble service:
“What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; if I were a wise man, I would do my part”. The carol gives the answer “Yet what I can I give him – give my heart”.”
by John Mason | Aug 29, 2013 | Thursday Thoughts
In recent weeks the media has been filled news of the ability of government security agencies to reach into so many aspects of our personal affairs – phone calls, email and social media. Many are concerned.
Psalm 139 tells us of another powerful source that looks into our lives – not just our activities, but into our very thoughts. In his psalm, sometimes described as the crown of Hebrew poetry, David speaks of a Watcher who is not a mere passive, receptor of information, like the prying of cyberspace, but someone who knows and understands every detail of our existence. ‘You have searched me, you know me, God,’ David says. ‘I have no privacy, no place from which I can exclude you. There is no corner of my mind where I can shut the door against you. Everything I do, everything I say, everything I think, is wide open to your gaze.’
‘You hem me in behind and before, you have laid your hand upon me’, he continues. At first it seems that David is saying, everywhere I go, every step I take, I feel you breathing down my neck. But the larger context indicates that he doesn’t see it this way at all. The words you hem me in can also be translated, ‘you guard me’ or ‘you encircle me for my protection.’ He doesn’t view God’s all-embracing knowledge as a threat, but rather as a refuge. He is not at all resentful of God’s all-seeing intelligence.
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? he asks. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast, we read in verses 9 and 10. David’s imagery of taking the wings of the morning is that of traveling at the speed of light to a far place. Even there he will still find God. The instant the thought enters his head that he might escape God, he realizes how impossible it is.
Many of us have felt the same as David, but we have a note of frustration in our voice: ‘God, I want to get away from you.’ But, surprisingly to us, David isn’t trying to run away. His reaction to God’s all-embracing knowledge is one of deep-felt gratitude. For, unlike human prying eyes, God’s eyes are pure and he is just in all his ways. For when we truly turn to God, his presence is not a threat or a cause for anxiety, but rather a joy. David understood that God’s presence means guidance and protection.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you (vv.11-12). David was anticipating the possibility that in a moment of panic he might find himself saying, ‘God has left me and forgotten me.’ Rather David was saying, no matter how dark the situation seems, God has infra-red vision – he sees in the night just as well as he sees in the day. God’s reassuring hand is there as much in the tough times as in the good times. In another psalm (Psalm 23) David could say: Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
